"Hastings," Barbara said. "She was called Jemima Hastings."
"What about her?" Matt Jones asked. He crossed his arms beneath a set of pectorals that were tanned, hairless, impressive, and decorated with a tattoo that said MUM and was surrounded by a wreath of thorns. He possessed three scars on his chest as well, Barbara saw, a puckering of the flesh that had the suspicious look of healed bullet holes. Who was this bloke?
"She's dead," Sidney told her lover. "Darling, Jemima Hastings was murdered."
He was silent. Then he grunted once. He moved away from the doorway and rubbed the back of his neck. "What about dinner?" he asked.
The West Town Road Arcade's CCTV tapes from that day are grainy, making absolute identification of the boys who took John Dresser impossible, should such identification rely on the tapes alone. Indeed, had it not been for Michael Spargo's overlarge mustard anorak, there is a chance that John's abductors might have gone unapprehended. But enough people had seen the three boys and enough people were willing to come forward and identify them that the tapes consequently act as confirmation of their identities.
The films show John Dresser walking away quite willingly with the boys, as if he knows them. As they near the arcade exit, Ian Barker takes John's other hand and he and Reggie swing the child between them, perhaps in the promise of more play to come. While they walk, Michael catches them up with a childlike skip and hop, and he seems to offer the toddler some of the French fries he's been eating. This offer of food to a child who was waiting hungrily for his lunch appears to have been what kept John Dresser happy to go with them, at least at first.
It's interesting to note that when the boys leave the Barriers, they do not do so by the exit that would take them to the Gallows, i.e., by the exit most familiar to them. Instead, they choose one of the lesser-used exits, as if they already have planned to do something with the toddler and wish to remain as unseen as possible when they make off with him.
In his third interview with the police, Ian Barker claims that their intention was just to
"have a bit of fun" with John Dresser, while Michael Spargo says that he didn't know "what them other two wanted with that baby," a term ("the baby") that Michael uses throughout his conversations with the police in reference to John Dresser. For his part, Reggie Arnold will not come close to discussing John Dresser until his fourth interview. Instead, he attempts to obfuscate, making repeated references to Ian Barker and his own confusion about "what he wanted that kitten for," attempting to direct the course of the conversation on to his siblings, or assuring his mother - who was present for nearly all interviews - that he "didn't nick nothing, never ever, Mum."
Michael Spargo claims that he wanted to return the toddler to the shopping arcade once they had him outside the Barriers. "I told them we could drop him back inside, just leave the baby by the door or something, but they were the ones didn't want to. I said we'd get into trouble for nicking him, wouldn't we [note the objectifying use of nicking, as if John Dresser were something they'd pinched from a shop] but they called me a wanker and asked me did I want to grass them up, then."
Whether this actually happened remains open to doubt as neither of the other two boys refers to Michael having second thoughts. And later nearly every witness - who came to be known collectively as the Twenty-Five - confirms that their sightings of the boys involved all three of them and John Dresser, and all three of them seemed to be actively involved with the little boy.
Considering his past, it seems reasonable to conclude that Ian Barker was the one to suggest they see what would happen if they swung John Dresser as they had been doing but dropped him instead of landing him safely on his feet. This they did, releasing him at the apex of the swing and projecting him ahead of them at some speed, with the apparent and expected effect of John's beginning to cry when he hit the pavement. This fall caused the first of the bruises to John's bottom and, possibly, the first of the ultimately extensive damage done to his clothing.